Eat fish despite mercury, says FDA draft report

The Washington Post reports today that the Food and Drug Administration wants to reverse its current advice on fish consumption, which tells children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and women of childbearing age to limit how much seafood to eat.

This comes four years after the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency said those groups should limit seafood consumption to 12 ounces a week and avoid certain fish entirely, because of concerns of methyl mercury and fetal development.

The 2004 advisory generated much controversy, mostly after the release of a large British study that found that children of mothers who ate less than 12 ounces of seafood a week had lower IQs and more problems than kids of moms who ate more fish. See P-I story on the study here.

The Post, which got a FDA draft report, says the FDA now argues that nutrients in fish – including omega-3 fatty acids and selenium – can boost a child’s IQ by three points. The FDA report also said that the greatest benefits come from eating more than 12 ounces of fish a week. It must be approved by the White House before becoming an official advisory.

The Post did not specify if a child’s increased IQ points come from the mother eating fish while pregnant, or from the child eating it.

The proposed recommendations are far from a slam-dunk. The Post reports that the EPA, which regulates mercury in commercially caught fish, has called the FDA’s arguments “scientifically flawed and inadequate.”